The Ugly

http://gawker.com/internet-racists-are-pretending-to-be-black-looters-in-1701227973

This is the worst of the worst. Racism has been around for thousands of years and is sadly still around today. If your'e not familiar with what has been going on in Baltimore this is a quick rundown. An African-American man was arrested on false charges of having a switch blade and was taking into custody. During the process the man was treated poorly by 6 police officers and sustained injuries in his spine. The reports show that the policemen denied the man medical attention and later on he died. Riots emerged due to this tragedy and most of the civil movements were non violent. As things stirred up and got worse there was a break out of violent riots and looting. In this article it talks about a white supremacist group who went online on social media sites such as twitter and posed as black males who looted. They posted photos with stereotypical captions to draw blame for looting to the African-American population.  This is as bad as the internet gets. People like this who are hateful and judgmental is the reason there is no peace on earth. If people could learn to except each other and allow everyone the freedom to do whatever they want then we would live in a much positive world. Since this utopia does not exist there are still small groups that are trying to drag the nation down. Although a little off topic, a quote on racism I love comes from the movie "42" about Jackie Robinson. When the manager is talking to another manager that is refusing to take the field against Robinson because he is black, the manager says, "someday you're gonna meet God, and when he inquires as to why you didn't take the field against Robinson in Philadelphia, and you answer that it's because he was a Negro, it may not be a sufficient reply!" There is no need for more racism in our society, and these online "trolls" are not doing any good. 

The article I used seems to be reliable. The article is on a website that is one of the most successful blog oriented sites. The author does a good job using examples for every point he makes to support his thesis. He shows some of the posts that were made from fake accounts. The author is not very professional because he does not give credentials nor does he speak in a censored manner. I still believe the article is valid because it does not take much background information to be able to speak about this and the author does a good job doing it.  

The Bad

http://www.usatoday.com/story/tech/columnist/komando/2015/05/01/internet-dark-web/26452515/

I believe this represents the bad side of the internet because the deep web and the dark web are where a lot of illegal things can go on. I don't believe it is bad enough to be the ugly because there are positives to the deep web like government databases. The dark web is called dark for a reason though." If you want to buy illegal drugs, guns, counterfeit money, stolen items, fake degrees or passports, cloned debit cards, hacking tools, weapons and more, you can." (Komando) The dark web is not easy to find so most ordinary people will not be able to just log into it with a normal browser. One of the more popular browsers people use on the dark web is "Tor" which blocks people from seeing your ip address. I believe the dark web is bad because millions or maybe billions of illicit dollars are being transferred.

I think this source was valid because usa today is a very credited online site and the author also has good credentials. The author also provides a link to her website and also her email for any questions. The source uses the government and its organizations as credited sources and it seems as if the article is well researched.

The Good

http://www.wired.com/2015/04/google-says-internet-things-will-save-electricity/

This article shows how internet effects the world in a positive way and how it has a potential to make a huge impact on our future. In this article the author talks about how google believes that the internet of things will help save money and electricity in the future. His dream is that one day when cars can drive themselves that there will be energy saved because people will begin to carpool and he even believes there could be an app like uber where a smart car comes and picks you up. This would cause less cars on the road, less people in lots, and energy being saved. Google says they are already seeing small changes from the internet. As small as it may be, googles digital thermometer is an innovation that's helping push the revolution of data and the internet taking over tasks. Google says its working capacity and data storage has tripled while still using the same amount of money and resources. This is big step in internet expansion and technology evolving.

This article to me seems reliable. For starters the author is reliable. He provides a link on his name to show his credentials and show that he is reliable to be talking about a topic like this. Second he uses a very credited organization, Google, in which he talks to a worker who oversees all of googles data networks.  The article seems well researched and reliable.

When rape goes viral

After reading this article, it made me feel a lot of grief for victims and their families. For them, whether it is reported or not, and whether or not there is justice, it still becomes a lose-lose for them. The examples of stories that were in the article never had a happy ending. Once the privacy of the girls were leaked, they believed there lives were ruined and reacted based on that. Its sad how many of these girls ended up taking their own lives based on the rumors, pictures, or videos that were released. Its even more sad that most of these cases of sexual assault would have never been reported or never had action taken if it hadn't been for the privacy invasion when they posted it on social media. The fact that someone has to be pushed to the point where they feel they have no where to go is disgusting. I believe there should be new policies instated that help to reduce the number of unreported incidents and make people feel more safe about reporting these kinds of things. Also action should be made to make women more safe in dangerous environments. After reading this article most people can see that there is an issue at hand that needs to be solved as soon as possible.

Why should we care about our privacy?

Most people when it comes to privacy just try not to think about it too much. I was the same way until i actually looked into what information about us and our personal lives are being gathered. You may have nothing to hide, but that does not mean all your information should be spread across the internet. Something people don't realize is that their information is actually worth a monetary value. Most businesses use this data that is collected to help marketing and campaigning. So why should we just give it to them? There are two main gatherers when it comes to information. The first is the government and the second is businesses. Some people are probably still thinking, why should i care? But the thing is the government and businesses use this information to snoop on peoples personal lives without permission. Unlike businesses, the government is subjected to the Privacy Act of 1974 which requires that agencies give the public notice of their systems of records by publication in the Federal Register. With businesses it is a lot more scary because they are not legally bounded to release what information has been collected or even what they are doing with it. Personally i am very concerned with where are privacy is dissolving to and hope that changes are made to protect law abiding citizens from this sort of stuff.

First blog for CS-408

CS-408 is in introductory class that explores what it is like to live in a networked world, including the good, the bad, and the ugly. This course talks about all aspects of the internet including internet ethics, coding, analyzing urls, and tons of other things. It teaches us how to use the internet safely and effectively by giving us some insight of what goes on in the internet world. We talk about exciting things like hackers , and some other less interesting things like bytes. Overall this is an excellent class to take with an excellent teacher.